Getting Started

Finally, those NEBRA/NEMBA people got the race calendars up! I guess there's no hurry when things don't get going until April, but I'm a compulsive planner, so I was chomping at the bit to start planning. There you have it! My 2011 Road/MTB season plan. It's only 15 races, between road and mountain, one stage race, and a two-day double century that I may or may not do. I'd have to raise $2500 to do it, which I don't think is too hard once you start asking around, but there's also a World Cup in Windham, NY that weekend that I'd really like to go watch. So we'll see. Maybe I'll just do the one day century for which I'd only have to raise $150. I dunno, gotta think it through. Plus, it's on my birthday, so maybe I'll just sit on the beach and drink margaritas. But I'd really like to do the double.

Anyway, having a light summer of racing will be good for doing a heavy fall of cyclocross. The team I raced for (in all 5 of the CX races I did this fall . . . ) might be getting some sponsorship to try to go to all the USGPs, plus I'd really like to go to Nats in Madison, since it's a lot closer than Bend. Probably really freaking cold, too.

What else? Oh yes. I woke up this morning to a house full of smoke because Cody had put some wet logs ON TOP of the wood stove to dry out, then went to work. The logs then caught on fire. Yeah. No worries, I tossed the logs into the wood stove before they could catch the walls on fire. Yay. Anyway, the house is now wicked smokey, despite shivering with the windows open for an hour.

And . . . Cody starts his job on Monday! Which everyone knows by now, but I'm super psyched so I thought it deserved another mention. And I'm applying for MassHealth today - that's right, a public option subsidized healthcare plan. I'm totally happy to pay taxes to help support that, even if I had health insurance through my work, which I don't, since I'm part time. Anywho.

I feel like all these posts sans pictures are pretty boring. I mean, words? Who's interested in that? But I've been remiss in taking photos lately, so I'll have to find something random and fun to put in for entertainment effect.

Okay, well, turns out I have nothing random and fun, so here's what you get.

This is the creek behind our house barn. It's tidal, so salt water, and sometimes it's just a big mud flat during low tide. People, mostly crusty old guys, dig clams out of it. Right now it's covered in big floating chunks of ice. This is a picture of one of Cody's brothers jumping into it in January of last year, when it was not covered in ice, but was still pretty freaking cold. Anyway, it's great in the summer. I really want it to be summer.

And this is the barn. This picture's a couple years old, and it's had some repairs done to it since then. The Cedar Rock Farm sign is new and is actually cedar, and the door to the right was torn down and a wall put up, because the door didn't open. We live above the lower part - you can kind of see the doors-to-nowhere in this picture. The doors were replaced when we moved in, too.

Anyway, I got to sit in on a training session with Lyne Bessette yesterday. She and her husband Tim Johnson live nearby, and they train with this guy who's the head trainer at MAC, where I work. It was super informative, because he told me stuff like, "now, with Lyne I can get away with this, because she's an athlete, but for most people you need to start a little slower." And he had to do some modifications because she has a bum shoulder, probably from something like this:

I got out for a ride outside the other day. Just one hour, but it really felt nice to ride outside. Otherwise, lots of running, lots of cross training. I've been training a lot with TRX, which is way fun and I totally recommend. My hamstrings and upper body are totally feeling the effects right now. Anyway, not sure it will make me a better bike racer, but it never hurts to be stronger.

Okay, must do something productive with my day . . .